Tony-OH

Good Lord. I wanna take the time to regurgitate the 1000 reasons why Hall will not be a successful starter, but I just don't have the time. I'll just assume you disagree with the evidence or haven't read it. But if you want to throw some orange pixie dust and believe, feel free. No one is underestimating his ability to get big league batters out or his starter's repertoire. Those of us who accept him as a reliever understand it's not only about walk rate when it comes to being a successful starter so pointing to it as empirical evidence for him being the best option is just not well informed in my opinion. McDermott is similar in that his age, inconsistency of command from start to start, and amount of pitches it takes him to get outs are all concerns. The one thing McDermott has over Hall is better health record.

My post was in jest clearly, which is why it was so long. In all seriousness, if that's what we're going to do here, the Orioles have few 1B options in AAA and even fewer 3B options if Mayo makes the team or is tried in RF. Nevin makes sense as that guy. It's just a little amazing that he had to be acquired and put on the 40-man roster for it to happen. I'm 99% sure he will be DFA'd when room is needed is when they would have start paying like a 40-man guy vs a AAA guy. Maybe because of the Orioles depth, it's harder for them to sign these AAAA-type 1B-3B so the only way to get one is to acquire them through cash considerations. Truthfully, they still need another one because TT Bowen is not really a good AA player. Now they could play Billy Cook at 1B in AAA, but other hand that, the pickings are slim and behind Mayo, the 3B AAA options are not plentiful either. Now why the Orioles PR team decided to put out graphic with "Welcome back to Birdland Tyler Nevin" is still a bit perplexing. Is he getting a bobblehead next?

100%.. I'm telling you all now, he has to have some kind of pictures of Elias that he doesn't want to get out. Seriously, I think Tyler Nevin has broken Sigbot's computer. Like there is something in his statcast data that keeps telling it he will be a good player despite any actual performance statistical data to back it up. I mean, there is literally no logical reason why he should be on a major league 40-man roster. As AAA 1B-3B fodder, sure, why not, but why would you put him on the 40-man roster? I know this move means nothing other than to confuse any knowledgeable fan/scout/analyst or really anyone with a vague knowledge of what makes a player reasonably valuable. I do have a theory. Last year, Sigbot's computer told Elias to go sign Adam Frazier despite having both Westburg and Ortiz ready to take over at 2B. That dumb, unnecessary move was not good in just about any way, but the Orioles ended up winning 101 games despite the move. Nevin is this year's Frazier move. Acquiring and adding a player like Nevin to the 40-man roster on a team with actual good players at the positions he supposedly plays is so insane that it has to be the Frazier move of the 2023-24 offseason. My last theory is that Elias has figured out that you have to be able to give an offering to the baseball Gods by putting one guy on his 40-man roster than it is so terrible that the offering allows the Gods to give a blessing. A player with no redeemable baseball skill who is not good at offense or defense who allows the Gods to take pity upon the organization and give it good luck for the following season. Those are my three guesses. Pictures, Frazier move, Baseball Gods offering!

The thing about McDermott is he's a bit like DL Hall in that it typically takes him a lot of pitches to get outs. Part of that is a lack of command and another part is that hitters don't typically hit him very hard because of the quality of stuff, leading to a decent amount of foul balls. In two of eight AAA starts he didn't make it to the 4th inning, but one of those he was pulled after just 52 pitches. He's also still pretty inconsistent start to start. That's why there is a very real reliever risk to him. Now, saying that, he did have some very nice outs where he was able to get through the 6th and one start made it through seven on just 92 pitches so there are days where it all works. What he needs to do is show more consistency from start to start in 2024 and get deeper into games by pitching to contact a little more against hitters that can't really hurt him. He's still very much a wildcard for the rotation in 2024, but it would not surprise me if he ends up seeing a decent amount of big league time in the second half of 2024. Whether that's in the rotation or in the pen will be depending on need and how he's pitching. https://www.baseball-reference.com/register/player.fcgi?id=mcderm000cha&type=pgl&year=2023

No doubt understanding the limitations of the team you are dealing with is crucial. I think that's partly why you hard rumblings of Elias saying they may consider Hall as a rotation piece again. He's signaling that while he's not going to be a player for a major free agent pitcher, he does have internal options. Honestly, if Getz won't come off Basallo/Mayo (assuming that is the hold up) as the headliner, Elias very well may need to start signaling that he's comfortable going into 2024 with what he has or start floating rumors he's close to moving for another option out there like Luzardo. This is a big offseason for Elias as he's in unchartered territory for this stage of being a GM. With his financial restraints, he's going to have to do it differently than how the Astros did it when they got to this point.

Which is why i think we've seen Elias change his draft strategy last year and why we may see more high picks starting to go towards pitching. I'd really like to see them go after a high school upside pitcher with one of three early picks. Are they volatile sure, but at some point you have to start investing upside pitching and not thinking you can acquire it because under Angelos, Elias is never going to have the budget to do so.

It's a two fold approach though this offseason. Obvious the first part is improving this team for 2024. That's most important. The second part is moving major league ready prospects that are depth for maybe some upside pitching prospects? Guys like Norby and Stowers come to mind. If Elias was able to get a Bradish out of an end of the line Bundy, somebody might be willing to part with an A-ball starting pitching prospect that could provide starting pitching depth in a few years.

Gotcha. Defense is one of the hardest thing to scout without data (statcast) or seeing a player often. A lot of national publications don't have the time or data to really judge defense so they go off a scouting contact that may or may not have seen the player all that much. So they regurgitate previous reports and run with it. I'll be honest, defense is the one area where I end up trying to do a lot of video work on players I really want to evaluate, but even then it's time consuming. There is no way to easily find defensive plays of minor league players so if I didn't see them a ton defensively while watching games, I usually end up going back and pulling up games in which he made errors. That typically at least let's me see what he struggles with. I wish MILB TV would add a search capability for defense.

That was going to be my choice but he actually never played with the Orioles. Plus he had some accuracy issues, but he had the best arm I can remember seeing arm strength wise. Guys who I remember having really good strong, accurate arms would be Ken Singleton, John Shelby, Adam Jones, Nick Markakis (early in the career) and Austin Hays.

Are your suggesting I don't take accuracy into account when I discuss throwing for outfielders. I hope not because I do take that into consideration. Here's the thing with Kjerstad, his throws are very inconsistent. He'll make a nice throw, then make a throw that would make Johnny Damon proud. Sometimes he's accurate, and sometimes he's not. I agree that pure arm strength is not the only thing to judge an outfielder's arm. Alex Ochoa had one of the strongest arms I ever saw, but I also saw him throw a ball about 15 rows deep into the 3rd base stands one time.

"Defensively, he did improve some at second base, but he's still a below average defender on the dirt. He did turn the double play better and he's got average second base arm strength but his accuracy is not always there especially when he has to throw hard on a play. He gets caught in short hops too often he seems to occasionally lose focus on making simple catches or pop ups.. He committed 16 errors this year in just 105 games at second base."

While I do think Kjerstad is a below average RFer overall, I don't think he's unplayable there. I wish there was a little more arm for RF and he doesn't have the jumps or top end speed to make up for it to play left field in Camden Yards. I wish he would have shown a little better at 1B because that would be a nice fit if he could hold his own there, but he looked pretty unplayable there in the minors.

No, my opinion has not changed. Wildcard has always believed sources like MLB.com over mine for as long as I can remember. To each is own. Norby is a well below average defender at 2B who will make some nice plays here and there, but will also make some head scratching errors. Has he improved some in his minor league time, sure, but I still feel he's a below average defender at 2B and would like to see what he can do in LF and even maybe some CF to see if he handle it as a 4th outfielder type.

Either way, he doesn't belong here. He's gone.

That's how I see it working once he's ready while Adley is here too. If he has another year like he had this year and ends up putting up Mayo like numbers in AAA this year, I would not be surprised if that's not by the start of 2025..

I agree that you really can't read too much into 4 games playing anywhere, but the fact that he struck out just once and had a .500 OBP showed that he was not intimidated or overwhelmed by the jump and that's impressive. In fact, Basallo has not been one of those guys that has needed a lot of time to adjust to different levels. That's one of the reason I bumped him over Mayo even though Mayo has done well in AAA and has an impact bat too. That ability to not stumble upon promotion and last year, even doing better, is what makes him that impressive.

Not unless there is a huge need. He doesn't need to be on the 40-man roster this offseason so unless he's tearing it up in AAA and the team has a need at 1B, C or DH, I don't see Basallo making his debut in 2024. Now 2025 is a different story.

One thing we have not really explored is why Elias has not been able to move his position prospects for pitching prospects. I think this is why he changed his drafting philosophy last year because he realized that teams don't trade starting pitching prospects for positional prospects very often. The grow the bats, acquire the arms drafting philosophy has been a pretty big question mark so far, and until he makes a trade for a major league veteran #1-#3 starting pitcher, or trades from his positional depth and acquires starting pitching prospects, I will agree with you that this part of his GM skills is still up for evaluation.

Good recap, well done. The only nit pick is that Mayo has only reportedly been working in RF, not that he has any professional experience there. At the end of the day, Elias has more major league ready players available to him than he has playing time. Sure, having depth is nice, but it's not like you can just plug and play rookies in the middle of the season and expect good results because most take some adjustment time. My personal opinion is the Orioles see their 2024 starting infield as: 1B: Mountcastle 2B: Westburg SS: Ortiz 3B: Henderson Urias, Mateo, and O'Hearn are all backup plans though I expect Mateo to be the utility guy because of his ability to play SS and the outfield, hit left-handers a bit, and of course his speed. No matter what they say, I think Holliday and Mayo will start the year in AAA. The outfield is where it gets really interesting: With an an outfield that seems set with: LF: Hays CF: Mullins RF: Santander Where does that leave Kjerstad and Cowser? Kjerstad should be on this team instead of O'Hearn, with Santander moving to 1B and Kjerstad to RF when when he's not DHing. There is probably 400 PAs for Kjerstad if O'Hearn is moved. I'm not sure the Orioles are willing to bring up Cowser as a 4th outfielder so I would imagine without moves, he's back to AAA. Norby is the guy that will either need to show that he can play outfield well enough to compete with McKenna and Hilliard for 4th/5th outfielder but if not he's going back to AAA. He's a traditional slow starter so that might be for the best anyways but I hope they play him a lot in the outfield if he goes back. I just hope that guys who go back to AAA don't sulk. At some point it's got to be mentally tiresome to be playing in AAA when you know you are good enough to play in the majors somewhere.

The thing is, the Orioles are certainly not going to offer the talent it would take to get a 2022 version of Cease. So I don't think anyone but maybe the White Sox GM values Cease like that. If Getz wants value for the 2022 version of Cease, then he's going to hold on to him because no team is going to do that, and certainly not Elias.

He was a #1 starter in 2022 and his FIP suggests even with his down year last year that he's a solid #2 or #3 at worse. A playoff rotation of Bradish, Rodriguez and Cease intrigues me for sure. If John Means is your 4th starter then your rotation is pretty good.

Yep. I don't think some people still realize how good a year Basallo had for his age. He hit for average, showed the ability to draw walks, did not have an extreme K rate, and was already tapping into his raw power during games. And he's got a plus plus throwing arm and improved his receiving and blocking behind the plate. Besides speed (he's not a base clogger by any means, but he's not that fast because of his size), he does everything really, really well. There's a reason I jumped him over Mayo and I really, really like Mayo.

You have to give up something to get something. If the Orioles intend to convert Mayo to RF, Kjerstad becomes redundant. Plus the Orioles have Cowser, and Beavers on the horizon and the fact that they need the DH spot for Adley at least 40 times a year and he becomes a guy that's available for me even though I do like the bat for the most part. Westburg is a guy who can play 2B and 3B effectively and he should get to his power more with experience, but he's never going to be 30 plus homer guy and his walk rate has fallen off a bit at AAA and then the majors. With Ortiz, Urias and Norby (If you are willing to have below average defense) ready, and Holliday on the horizon, he's replaceable this year and the future. The only way you don't make that deal is if you think Cease is who he was last year and will not recover a bit, but his 3.72 FIP suggests he was better than his 4,58 ERA playing on a losing team suggests. I'm making that deal if I don't have to add a ton more.

That's a fair assessment. I'm in the camp that if the price is right, I'm happy to add Cease to the rotation, but Westburg is a pretty important guy if Elias doesn't believe in the defensive capabilities of Holliday at SS or Mayo at 3B. If Holliday needs to play 2B, and personally I don't think we know this yet, that moves Westburg to 3B keeping Gunnar at SS. That still leaves Ortiz needing a place to play and he's best defensive player of them all. If the Orioles move Westburg, they also have Urias who can play 2B well and two years ago was the GG at 3B despite falling off last year in all facets of the game. If I'm Elias, Urias is nothing more than an emergency back up plan for this year. Now, would I move both Kjerstad and Westburg for Cease? Probably, but not if I have to include Povich/McDermott and another piece. Would ask for that if I'm Getz, sure, but Kjerstad and Westburg alone is pretty good get for two years of Cease coming off a less than stellar season with less than stellar pitch values.

I don't. I like Westburg, but if he's the key guy they want, depending on who else they are asking for, I'd move him for Cease. He's replaceable from within by Holliday/Ortiz or Mayo at 3B. The only way the Orioles don't want to move Westburg is if they've determined Mayo is not a 3B and Holliday is not a SS.